Erdogan expected to win Turkey's first popular presidential vote

Nick Tattersall and Orhan Coskun

Ankara: Recep Tayyip Erdogan was widely expected to secure his place in history as Turkey's first popularly elected president on Sunday, but his tightening grip on power has polarised the nation, worried Western allies and raised fears of creeping authoritarianism.

Mr Erdogan's supporters, religious conservatives, see his likely rise to the presidency as the crowning achievement of his drive to reshape Turkey. In a decade as prime minister, he has broken the hold of a secular elite that had dominated since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the modern republic on the ruins of an Ottoman theocracy in 1923.

Opponents see him as a modern-day sultan whose roots in Islamist politics and intolerance of dissent are taking Turkey, a member of the NATO military alliance and European Union candidate, ever further from Ataturk's secular ideals.

Erdogan supporters during an election rally in Ankara on Friday. Photo: AFP

Mr Erdogan could, aides have said, serve two presidential terms and rule to 2023, the 100th anniversary of the secular republic. Such symbolism is not lost on a leader whose passionate speeches are frequently laced with references to Ottoman history.

"On the assumption that Erdogan wins, what we're going to have is the beginning of a new era," said Marc Pierini, a former EU ambassador to Turkey and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Europe think tank.

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Until now, Turkish presidents have been chosen by parliament but under a new law, three candidates have competed for a five-year term.

Mr Erdogan, through the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) he heads, has already tried to enhance the authority of the presidency that he has unabashedly aspired to for the past few years.

Electoral rules ban the publication of opinion polls in the immediate run-up to the vote, but surveys put Mr Erdogan's support at about 55 per cent. This is 20 points ahead of the main opposition candidate, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, and enough to secure the simple majority needed to win in the first round.

Selahattin Demirtas, head of the pro-Kurdish left-wing People's Democratic Party, was running a distant third.

Mr Erdogan has made no secret of his ambition to change the constitution and establish an executive presidency; he has also made clear that in the meantime he will exercise the full powers of the post under Turkey's existing laws.

They give him the authority to convene cabinet meetings, as well as appoint the prime minister and members of top judicial bodies, including the constitutional court and supreme council of judges.

"A president elected by the people cannot be like the previous ones. As the head of the executive, the president uses all his constitutional powers. If I am elected president, I will also use all of them. I won't be a president of protocol," he was quoted by the Hurriyet Daily News as telling his party colleagues in May.

"When a man like Erdogan becomes the first popularly elected president, even if the constitution remains unchanged, it will mean Turkey has switched to a semi-presidential system," said a senior official from his ruling AK Party. "Starting this Sunday, there will be a new system."

A strong Erdogan victory would mark an extraordinary recovery from one of his most difficult years in office. He has bounced back from anti-government demonstrations last year in which five were killed and a corruption scandal months later that involved his son.

But his modernisation drive has created jobs and lifted millions of Turks from poverty, buying him support and respect from his party's conservative and religious core constituents. His influence over Turkish media has also allowed his campaign to dominate the airways.

Political analysts say that with the outcome almost assured, what will tell them most about the future of Turkey's leadership under a President Erdogan will be his choice for who succeeds him in the prime minister's office and as Justice and Development Party chief. Mr Erdogan will need to resign from the party if, as expected, he takes the presidency.

In an analysis of the Turkish political scene for al-Jazeera, Furman University political science professor A. Kadir Yildirim pondered the possibility of a Kremlin-like swap of roles, with outgoing President Abdullah Gul replacing Mr Erdogan as government leader, as Russian President Vladimir Putin finessed his lock on the levers of power by appointing a pliable successor in Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.